Reactive Organisation

For Reactive organizations, every day things are typically different, and not a little confusing. Events and demands pile on top of each other, requiring responses which have never been made before, and consequently are not made with ease or certainty of result. Under the circumstances, it seems sufficient to meet challenge with action, almost any action will do. Just keep things moving until there is some sense of what works, and what does not, what is appropriate, and what is just be the point. Fortunately, the organization has a resource from its Potential upon which it may draw: Data and Information. Those facts and figures, which emerged out of Language, as the organization neared concreteness, now become critical. They may not be right, nor totally accurate, but it is all that stands between the fledgling organization and chaos. The data and information suggest the direction of action, and since little time exists to think about anything else, you have to go with what you’ve got. At times like these, it doesn’t seem to make much difference what you do – JUST DO SOMETHING . . . REACT.

For the first days of business, reactivity is fine, indeed it may be the only way to go. But as a way of life, it leaves a good deal to be desired. Under the best of circumstances, it appears that things are getting done, but what things and to what purpose is not always clear. Carried to extremes, tempers become frayed and frustration mounts as action breeds reaction and then more action, all to no clear-cut end. What starts as a marvelous burst of energy, finally doing something, ends with Alice in Wonderland, where the faster you go the behinder you get. And even that is not clear, because with all the activity, it is very easy to lose sight of which way is ahead.

There must be a better way, and indeed that way may be found by fulfilling the potential held in the organizational Language, because it supplies “that special way of speaking” which made this organization unique. Products and procedures can be named and roles clarified by titles – and perhaps most of all, directions established, in relatively clear and unambiguous terms. You may not know exactly what the terms mean, but at least there are words for things, and that make everybody feel better. Using the language of the organization, it is possible to begin to see the beast as a whole, as opposed to the fragments represented by the Data and Information. With this sense of the whole, some order may be restored above the chaotic Act-React cycle. It becomes clearer who we are, and what the business is, so becoming a Responsive organization.

Harrison Owen, 1987